366 Marketing

Turn more prospects into customers

The Complete Guide to Video Marketing

Follow Us

Inbound Marketing Certified

Get Your Trade Show Marketing Guide

Marketing Blog

By

The How and Why of Trade Show Marketing

So you have your space, you know what you are taking to the show. You have your booth and your hotel rooms.  Let me ask you this, does anyone outside your company and the show sponsors know you are coming?

Yeah some people may have seen your name in the guide to the show, but besides that have you really marketed your attendance?

Now ask yourself, why not?  There are a lot of excuses;  budget, it’s the sponsors job, we don’t know anyone, the sun is in my eyes, my shoes are untied.tradeshow marketing

Yeah excuses.

Did you know that roughly 70% of vendors at a trade show don’t do any pre-marketing?  That means if you are in the 30% that does you have a tremendous advantage.

So now that you have decided to be a part of the 30% that do pre-show marketing, what should you do to market your attendance?

The first idea is to check with show management and see what help they offer.  Depending of the size of the show and your sponsorship level you might have a great deal of opportunities, some of which are free.

So the best way to decide which ones to do are to evaluate each one on three criteria.

  1. How much does it cost?
  2. How much time will it take?
  3. How much value will it add to your company?

Social Media.  Don’t forget to mention your attendance on social media.  Check with show management to see if there is a social tag for the event.

Blog articles. Write a blog article about the event and why you are attending.  What new feature, service or product will you be exhibiting?  (surprisingly this is why 85% of attendees come to show is to see new things)

Emails.  A few months before your show start mentioning it in your email newsletters to your customer base.  If it is a regional show perhaps you should send a few extra emails to companies in that area.  Offer them invites to any event you may be planning in concert with the event.

Want to learn more about how to plan and market for your trade show?  Contact 366 marketing and let’s talk.

 

By

How SEO Helps Market Your Business

how SEO helps market your business small

A lot of people ignore the usefulness of SEO to market their business.  They want to just rely on word of mouth or advertising or whatever “magic bullet” they have.  The truth is there is no magic bullet.  Use all the tools you can and reap the benefits is the much better option.

So why do I want to to make your site my search engine friendly;?  The truth is that your website has 2 different types of traffic coming to it.  Branded and Organic.

How many people do you think are searching for, oh I don’t know, “366 marketing website design” and how many just search “website design rock hill sc“?  My guess is more people are just searching website design Rock hill sc. They clearly don’t know how awesome I am. (Why aren’t you telling them?)

“366 Marketing” is the branded keyword and “website design rock hill” is the organic keyword.  Now the branded one is easier to rank for (read pop up) when someone enters it into Google or any other search engine. There is not a ton of 366 Marketings vs. the numerous other website design businesses.

So the first goal is to rank for the branded keywords.  Usually that doesn’t take up to much time.  If your name is unusual enough simply registering for the domain and having a website is enough.

However, although it is easy to rank for, due to the lack of competition for the search term, people have to know your business to is out there to search your business by name.

The key is to appear for both searches.  For that you need to improve your SEO on your website. This will help you market your business to a bigger crowd than people who just have brand awareness of your company.

So here are a couple of things to look for when you are setting up new pages for your website.

  • Only try to target one keyword with each page.  (Need to know what keywords to select? Google adwords is a great resource.)
  • Make sure your targeted keyword is in your url of that page
  • The page title should include your keyword or phrase.
  • Header or h1 of your site carries a lot of weight with the search engines.  It should contain your keyword as well

Next you want to have a couple of references to your keyword phrase on your page.  The amount varies vs. the amount of copy you have.  Maybe two -three times out of a 300 word article.

Speaking of length of your article you probably want to have at least 30 words on a page.  Google will knock you for “thin’ content. So make sure there is some meat on your bones, er page.

Your meta description should have your keyword in it although that is not as important as it was before.  The best reason to have it in your meta descriptions is so that it is bolded in search results.

A word of caution: You want the search engines to find you and promote you but you are ultimately selling to people not spiders; the little bits of software that “crawl” (look) at your site.

So you need relevant content.  Both of your readers benefit from that.

A good example of something that is relevant to the search engines and to your readers is the images on your website.  People are more drawn to pages that have images. But the search engines can’t see the images.  However, you can give an image a name using the alt tag.  And the best thing to name an image is something that contains your keyword.  It is a signal to the search engines that your page is indeed about whatever topic you are writing about.

As search engines get smarter they are coming closer and closer to “reading” a page like a human does.  Their goal is to rank pages higher that humans like, not just the spiders.

And there is one really good indicator of when people like a page.  Next time we will talk about the absolute best way to get SEO “juice” on you site.

Want to learn more about how SEO helps market your business?  Contact 366 for a free one hour consultation. 

 

 

 

By

How Stakeholder Service Influences Brand Management

There is a lot of talk in business about customer service.  And don’t get me wrong, customer service is very important.  In fact I think customer service is so important it should be under the purvey of marketing.  After all, who knows how to take care of people better than marketing?  Just kidding sales people.

However I do feel that there is a huge disconnect.  While I know most companies really want to take care of customers I think customer service should be expanded to stakeholder service.How Stakeholder Service Influences Brand Management

For those of you who are unfamiliar with stakeholders:  a stakeholder is anybody who has anything to do with your company.  Stockholders, owners, employees, suppliers and of course customers are all stakeholders.

Stakeholders surround and control the brand.  That’s why they are all influential when it comes to brand management.

The goal of stakeholder service is simple.  Happy motivated employees, happy suppliers, happy owners, happy customers; basically making people happy is the end result of stakeholder service.

So why should you waste money stakeholder service?

  1. It is the right thing to do
  2. Having enemies in his always more expensive than having friends
  3. And most importantly because happy people make a better brand

So why don’t companies already focus on stakeholders and instead of customers?  A lot has to do with being penny wise and pound foolish.  This is a false saving… you are only the saving in the short run.

For example….

Don’t try to screw suppliers out of every nickel.  Often there is such an adversarial relationship between a vendor and the company using their services.

Why is that?

If you try to suck everything you can out of a vendor you win in the short term, but what does that do to the partnership? Also what does it do to your reputation in the marketplace?  It makes brand management a lot more difficult.
Don’t try to screw employees to the wall. Companies often try to do this when they think an employee has nowhere else to go. For instance, during an economic downturn.

Employees have very long memories and will recall how you treated them, being more prone to leave you when an opportunity arises.  And they won’t be quiet about you when they leave.  Check out glass door and see what people have to say about your company.

Don’t try to screw your coworkers or colleagues in another department. Although your peers may not have actual power over you, it’s never a good idea to antagonize them.  Especially if they work in IT or human resources

You need to build reservoirs of goodwill: you never know where you might need a favor.  And remember everyone that has a relationship with the company controls the brand in some way.

I think customer service is obviously very important but there have been tons of articles written about that so I will leave that one.

I hope this convinces you to focus on stakeholder service vs only customer service.  Want to learn more about stakeholder service and how it influences brand management?  Contact 366 marketing for a free one hour consultation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By

Wowing Your Customers is Always the Best Marketing

wow your customers 366 marketingI have written before about how surprise and delight carry
so much weight with customers.  Your
customer and prospects love to get more that what they expect.  So why not wow them with your customer
service? That’s one of  the best marketing tools around.

All they expect is courtesy and when you go beyond that you
are on your way to building customers for life.
So why do so many companies continue to ignore it?

But how about some concrete examples that will make your
customers not just like you, but love you.

Restaurant:   Empower your servers.  Let them solve problems as much as
possible.  Don’t make them go to the
manager when they know how to resolve a problem.

Let them take care of their regulars by giving them
something (small) for free.  Not every
time they come in but sometimes.  I love
being remembered.  Grocery stores reward
loyalty, why can’t your restaurant?

The second part of this is to reward your staff when someone
says something good about them.  It is
simple reinforcement of good behavior.

Retail establishment:
Let me illustrate this one with an example.
One 4th of July when I was younger we bought a bagful of
fireworks paid and left.  But if you have
ever bought fireworks you know that you usually get a little something as a
premium.  Maybe some sparklers.

This time, nothing.

When we ran out of those fireworks (we ran out of fireworks
a lot) we went to a different fireworks stand.
There along with our purchase we got a handful of freebies.  We told the owner what had happened at the
other store and she gave us extra just to “make up” for not getting
extras at the original stand.

Where do you think we bought our fireworks from then on?

Service industry:  This is where true customer appreciation is
most important.  Show your customers some
extra love by how you do your job.  Your
competitors are probably trying to do the bare minimum to get paid.  So go above and beyond.

For instance, if you have a landscaping business, offer
advice so their petunias grow better, or how they can keep deer out of their
yard.

If you own a professional business, be free with your
advice.  Not only is it great customer
service but you build trust, and as we all know people work with people they
trust (read like).

So I hope I have given you a couple of examples that you can
use in your day-to-day business in order to build customer loyalty and
retention.  If you want additional free
advice download 366’s
free EBook “5 marketing Tips for Small Business”

By

How Niche Marketing Can Help You Win More Business

niche marketing from 366 marketingNiche marketing means not being everything to everyone. Ever notice that you don’t see a lot of dentist/auto repair?  Ok, that might be bit of a stretch.  But a lot of small businesses market themselves as everything to everyone.  And that really doesn’t work. You can’t do everything, at least not well. For instance we do website design in Fort Mill SC and the surround areas. Not for small business in the Cayman islands.
But you want to maximize revenue, right?  And if you turn something down you don’t make that money.  However, I think the better plan is to say no.  Maybe you should even say  no more often than you say yes,.
Find your niche and market to it as hard as you can.  Be honest with your customers and they will respect you for it.  Don’t try and hide your weakness, embrace it.  Take heart in the fact that because you are weak in one respect means that you can take the time to be strong in another.
So how do you find your specialty?
What are you really good at?  What can you do better than your competition?  Or at least give your competition a run for their money.  Make it your specialty.  If you make awesome cupcakes and so, so crepes don’t open a bakery, open a cupcake shop.
What makes you the most money?  Yeah, yeah, it’s not all about money but that’s why have our business instead of hanging out at the beach surfing or whatever.  If you don’t make money what you have instead of a business is a hobby.    So find out what generates the most profit and structure your business around it.
What don’t you like doing?  For instance I love internet marketing but don’t particularly like editing releases.  So you know what?  I don’t do that.  I outsource it to someone else.
What can you cut out?  What takes up a lot of your time and doesn’t return a lot of money?  What only elicits from your customer an ehhh, ok vs. awesome!  Cut it.  Stop providing it.  If it ain’t great, eviscerate.  Or something like that.
So what have you cut out of your business to focus on what you do really well?  Let us know.  If you need help marketing your small business give us a call maybe we can help.

By

Ignoring Social Media Marketing is Ignoring Word of Mouth

Social media is word of mouth
According to a recent article, small businesses say they don’t consider social media an imperative to business.  However, they say word of mouth is very important.  That seems like a disconnect to me considering social media marketing is word of mouth!

In fact social media is the most powerful of word of mouth.  Here’s why.

Unlimited:  Word of mouth happens online at the speed of the keyboard.  And the audience isn’t limited to your best friend or buddy at work.  The potential audience is billions strong.  Word of mouth has always had weight.  Now combined with social media it has breadth as well.

Expanding:  Along the same vein is that now word of mouth can build.  If one person says something negative and another agrees, the audience has grown exponentially.  It can go from one network to another and to another.  Or conversely, if someone says something great and no one else agrees or pushes the conversation it can die.

Unending:  When someone posts something online there is a good chance it will be there a long time. What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet.  Forever, in many cases.   That means that mistake from years ago, can still sabotage a sale today.

So why is all this seemingly negative information great for business?  Because you can see these conversations and respond to them.  In a traditional word of mouth scenario, people share something negative and you never hear about it.  All you hear is that new customer never calling.

But with conversations happening in  social media not only can you hear the conversation, you can shape it.  You can respond to complaints and turn a brand killer into a brand barbarian.

Social media has been described as a cocktail party where everyone is invited.  You should go.  Find out what people are talking about.  Be available and start a dialogue.

And check out our new E-book 5 Marketing Tactics for Small Business.